In America today just like in Lake Woebegone every child is above average and every child gets a trophy. We may score low in international grade comparisons but we rank number one in self-esteem. In other words American students may not be doing well but they think they are. Those of us old enough to remember how Dad could control the situation with a look and when you got in trouble in school your parents didn’t sue or contact the School Board you got in trouble at home too are also old enough to remember Watergate.

This scandal that the general public still does not understand brought down a president and led to the Watergate Congress which threw away the victory in Vietnam and solidified the Progressive control of Congress until 1994. Today we are confronted with contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law that makes the Watergate Scandal look like the tempest in a teapot that it actually was. How many people died as a result of the Watergate Scandal = 0. How many have died as a result of the Fast and Furious debacle = at least 200 and still counting including an American law enforcement officer. How did Richard Nixon disrespect, disregard or violate the Constitution in the Watergate Scandal = 0 (although his use of Executive privilege did spark a constitutional crisis). How many times has Barack Obama disrespected, disregarded or violated the Constitution during his time in office = at least twice as documented below by making recess appointments while Congress was still in session and refusing to enforce laws.

There is an old saying, “That’s good enough for government work.” This saying comes out of the big government make-work programs of the 1930s and has been used ever since as short hand for “Approximate is close enough,” which might as well be the new national motto. In societies that rob Peter to pay Paul the stage before all the Peters change their names to Paul is typified by government bean counters picking winners and losers. This process discourages producers and encourages non-producers assuring you get less of the former and more of the latter. As an educator I have a belief that if you don’t teach someone to do something right you are teaching them that doing it wrong is acceptable.

In the past seven years President Obama has said repeatedly that he does not have the power to act unilaterally through executive orders to re-write the nation’s immigration laws.

In October of 2010 President Obama told the Washington Press Corps that he was not a dictator and thus could not impose immigration reform on his own without Congress.

In 2013 in interviews with Spanish language media he said, “I am not a king” and that he could not impose immigration reform on his own without Congress.

In all he has said things similar to this 22 times since becoming president. In 2008 when then Senator Obama was running for president he attacked President Bush for using executive orders in a bold over-reach to illegally extend presidential power. In 2008 he tried to back up his critique of Bush’s use of executive orders by claiming to have been a constitutional law professor. A claim not supported by investigation.

If President Obama is now doing what he has consistently proclaimed he didn’t have either the power or the authority to do and no one at least tries to stop him. What is there that he can’t do?

If Congress does not assert its place as a co-equal branch of government, the Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama will continue to usurp power. From recess appointments while Congress is in session to refusing to enforce the laws of the land to unilaterally remaking immigration law this President is fundamentally transforming our system of government. Not through the amendment process, but through a campaign of unconstitutional and therefore illegal actions designed to buy him enough votes for a second term. Whether it is through the money laundering schemes that are government negotiations with public service unions, pork barrel payoffs to political donors, or back-door amnesty this is nothing more than buying votes: a time-honored Chicago tradition. Combine this with a campaign to resist any attempt to verify who is voting and the stage is set for an election that would make any managed society proud.

His supporters may call it the Audacity of Hope Campaign, but if it is successful it will be the audacity which crushes any hope of limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom. The dreams from his father will become the nightmares of our children and grandchildren. With no authority Mr. Obama is attempting to rulebydecree. Executive orders have previously been used to direct the Executive Departments how to implement laws. Mr. Obama is using them to legislate, and that is in direct contravention to the separation of powers clearly outlined in the Constitution.

President Obama has built a shadow government that parallels and is standing ready to supplant our constitutional government. He has appointed more Czars than most of his predecessors and these Czars are not just advisers they are actually tasked with duties that under our traditional American governmental structure have been the responsibility of Cabinet Secretaries. These Czars are not confirmed; they are anointed, and none of them are accountable to anyone but the President. Even though Congress voted to defund his Czars, President Obama has said he will ignore that part of the Budget and keep them anyway. A cult of personality surrounds him typified by a compliant media which fawns over his every action and defends his every transgression.

As if to add icing to the cake the Obama Administration has invoked Executive Privilege to support Attorney General Holder in his refusal to surrender all requested documents in the Fast and Furious Scandal. What national security issues could there be in this matter? If the documents proved that the operation really did start under the Bush administration as Mr. Holder contends does anyone doubt they would have been on the table yesterday? Either the President is attempting to protect his Attorney General, some member of the White House staff or himself. Either way this may eventually provide a real similarity to the Watergate Scandal. Though in this case the cover-up could not be worse than the crime it could lead to enough fallout to make his own supporters leave a sinking ship to avoid the stigma of a failed presidency and a looming constitutional crisis.

Now think of the IRS scandal and Benghazi and it is obvious we have a rogue president who is becoming exactly the threat to liberty the Constitution was written to prevent.

If this slide into tyranny is not stopped it will continue. If it is not protested it will be accepted. I know that just as with Clinton in the 90s there are not enough Senators to convict but if these blatant attacks upon the checks and balances are not punished, at least by the shame and reproach of an Impeachment Resolution, they are being silently condoned.

Speaker Boehner stand up and lead the House! Don’t just make a speech; present a case. Don’t just give us a photo op; give us a fighting chance to save this great experiment in human freedom.

If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything. America it is time to stand up to this Southside Chicago bully, and let him know he can’t have our lunch money anymore, and he can’t subvert our Republic either at least not without us protesting and using every legal means available to stop him and preserve limited government.

We, the lovers of freedom and the supporters of limited government cannot merely wait the clock out on the Obama presidency. Because with all these affronts to constitutional government unchallenged combined with his presidential campaign in 2012 based upon class warfare and the redistribution of wealth he and his statist backers will declare it a mandate for more of the same, on steroids. An oligarchy of the perpetually re-elected veneered over a permanent nomenclature of federal bureaucrats will easily fall in line behind a complacent and complicit media to cheer the new order as the soft tyranny of the central planners tell us what is best for us and then forces us to say thank you. As Hilary or someone like her along with their tens of millions of imported voters wait in the wings to be the nail in our coffin.

Protest the lawless Progressive counter-revolution! Contact your Representative and demand an impeachment hearing to investigate President Obama for the High Crimes of subverting the Constitution. He should be investigated for:

According to Zach Taylor an outspoken former Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent who is the chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, “As the government allocates resources to South Texas, it is systematically leaving areas within the U.S., as well as vast swaths of land along the border, unguarded.” Taylor continues, “This gives people that are trying to get their infrastructure, their personnel, their drugs, their dirty bombs, their biological weapons, their chemical weapons into the United States without being noticed” the opportunity to do so, “because this part of the border is open, it is not being controlled.”

Taylor also said, “If asymmetrical warfare is going to be successful, the first thing that has to be done is to compromise America’s defenses against invasion because they have to have their personnel inside the United States to affect the infrastructure… they have to affect the degeneration from inside the United States.”

By constantly focusing on the 10% that is apprehended, and by consistently referring to the 1%who are immigrant minors, the government and their media fellow-travelers draw the attention of most Americans away from the hundreds of thousands who evade capture. No one knows how many of these people are gang members. It is known that in Central America children as young as ten join these gangs and that the initiation for many is committing murder. These are the poor but not innocent children who may be in a classroom with your own sons and daughters come September.

According to a June press release Taylor elaborated, “This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor Illegal Alien children at risk for purely political purposes. Certainly, we are not gullible enough to believe that thousands of unaccompanied minor Central American children came to America without the encouragement, aid and assistance of the United States Government.”

Former Agent Taylor asked this pregnant question, “Will this heartless criminal exploitation of Central American infants and children finally awaken Americans to the ruse being foisted upon them by their government, the media and other interested parties, or has America lost her ability to stand up against the tyrants and do what is right rather than what is easy?”

Perhaps the most chilling thing Taylor had to say was, “It is a perfect military strategy. It doesn’t raise any eyebrows because we’re focused on the children, but we need to focus on our children, because this is asymmetrical warfare. Everything says it is. And the way the United States government is responding to it is concealing that fact from the American people. In other words they’re assisting in the downfall of America, and you need to understand that.”

What is the real scope of this invasion? According to Dan Patrick a Texas State Senator, “Every week, week after week, we’ve been averaging for the last year apprehending between six and ten thousand people a week. If we apprehend eight or nine thousand a week, that’s more people than are born in Texas each week.” The Senator continued, “Now, we think we catch one out of every five. That means twenty five or thirty thousand are crossing the border, that we don’t catch. Don’t focus on the numbers that are apprehended, that’s the ones we catch.”

Ronald Colburn, former national deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol says, “According to my sources, it appears that this administration is causing that [bottleneck] on purpose. So they [the Obama administration] may be saying they’re trying to resolve it, but they’re doing something different. They need to put their actions where their mouths are.”

According to a Pew Research study, “Even though the growth is higher among younger children, the bulk of unaccompanied children caught at the border remain teenagers. In fiscal year 2013, nine-in-ten minors apprehended at the border were teens. This share has dropped as the number of younger children making the dangerous trip has risen dramatically: In the first eight months of fiscal year 2014, 84% were teens.”

We are told every day all day by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media and the cable clones that this is an emergency. Or as they say it, “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!” Yet according to the Congressional Budget Office only $25 million out of the $4.3 billion request will be spent this year. The CBO score conflicts with the argument of Democrats and Obama administration officials, that the money is urgently needed for border activities. We are portrayed as heartless, as merely wanting to protect our own privilege while consigning the children to lives of hopeless poverty. However the fact is that according to Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) the Senate Budget Committee’s ranking member, “Between 2000 and 2013, we lawfully issued almost 30 million work and immigrant visas. To put that number in perspective, 30 million is about the population of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala combined.”

I believe it is time that those of us who believe in a traditional America and its values of limited government, personal liberty and economic freedom are honest with ourselves. For the past 100 years when you compare the long game of the Progressives with the rest of us; we have been playing checkers and they have been playing chess. Not only have they kept their end goals always in view through victory and defeat they have successfully captured education and media programming generations of people to if not think like them to at least accept the soundness of their premise: government can be all things to all people. In this game of chess that we never realized we were playing, the current invasion, plotted and planned well in advance, may well be check and checkmate. How can we ever recover from an influx of millions of new progressive supporters and voters shipped around the country to the districts needed to sway elections? How are we ever going to come back from this?

Abraham Lincoln told us, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

Europe committed suicide in two fratricidal world wars. We have allowed hubris abroad and greed at home to lead us down the same path. By establishing a world-girdling empire of nation building money pits and a centrally planned redistributionist attempt at utopia at home we have stifled freedom and killed the golden goose. Now the preplanned crisis in the south is delivering the plurality of low information voters to seal the deal.

Finally a plan by the Obama Administration to save the children from the train of death, pick them up in their home countries and fly the directly to the districts where democratic voters are most needed. As far as political theater this comes under the “You’ve got to be kidding me” category. And as a bonus once the children are here we will need to bring their parents along to help preserve the family. And now the undocumented democrats are demanding representation at any White House meetings designed to determine their fate. They plan to protest in front of the White House until their demands are met with no fear of arrest. Has Monty Python taken over this country? How can living in the shadows include public demonstrations and representation in the government?

We cry about the people who have broken all the rules of our checker game while they move our pawns to the welfare line, our knights to the unemployment line, our rooks our bishops and our queen to the sidelines, and our king to the deadline. Check and mate.

Why isn’t it pointed out by the pontificating talking heads that every mass murder in recent memory has occurred in a legally declared “Gun-Free” zone? We might as well put signs in front of our schools, malls, army cafeterias and hospitals that say, “If you’re a crazy person no one here is armed.” Perhaps if we put a sign in front of these establishments that said, “Protected by Smith and Wesson” we would get better results?

Our fearless leaders are following the Progressive playbook to the letter. First and foremost “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Capitalizing on the tragedy caused by a sick person with a stolen gun these wannabe totalitarians see an opportunity to disarm their victims and they are preparing to make a move. They realize they won’t be able to outlaw the private ownership of guns in America all in one fell swoop. However, their strategy is always two steps forward one step back. This is the same strategy that has worked so well for them in capturing the education system, the media, and the two major political parties.

Now they bring their previous conquests to bear to help them achieve a long cherished goal of a defenseless America that they can shape into the shabby and dismal centrally-planned highly regimented socialist nightmare they portray as Utopia.

The education wing has given them a dumbed down populace who have never studied the Federalist Papers enough to know the Second Amendment wasn’t written to protect hunters. It was written to ensure the American public could stand up to any tyrants who would ever attempt to step on the throat of freedom.

The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media beat the drum everyday calling for gun control, bullet control, an end to the freedom to buy and sell legal firearms or anything else they can dream up that moves their Progressive heroes closer to their goal: a gun free zone around every lawful citizen. In the meantime their entertainment wing churns out the vilest filth filled with violence and mayhem in movies and games. At the same time these pious hypocrites make money providing examples of chainsaw massacres and other scenes of slaughter, walk around with private security and send their children armed guards.

This has been accomplished in other lands. The Germans and the Russians were disarmed. Did that enhance their security? The Australians and the British have been disarmed. Has that enhanced their security? Does anyone seriously believe that criminals will not break gun laws? They are criminals. Breaking laws is what they do. Just as locks are only for honest people gun laws only disarm lawful citizens.

Should people who own guns keep them secure? Certainly. Should people with guns know how to safely use them? Certainly. Should we surrender our constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms? Absolutely not. These rights have already been infringed upon to the point where in most places it is not legal for most citizens to keep let alone bear arms.

Instead of meekly sitting still while our rights suffer further erosion we the people need to let our representatives know that we will not suffer any more incremental subversion of our liberty. We must let them know in every way that we will not go gently into the long dark night. We will not stand as sheep to be sheared of the rights given to us by our creator, recognized in our Declaration of Independence, and carved into the stone of our Constitution.

The masses of sheeple who have been bred by generations of government paternalism and educational propaganda are clamoring to be shorn of yet more of their heritage. Their cheerleaders from the anchor desk to the late night variety shows and their idols on stage and CD are herding them to the shearing pens. If we stand still for executive orders that contradict the plain intent of the Constitution we will deserve whatever we receive.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Now is the time for the patriot to say, “We have gone this far and no further.” Freedom isn’t free. It never has been and it never will be. If we want to preserve this land of liberty the time is coming when we will have to do whatever has to be done. And it might be time to live out some of the clichés we have used for so long:

Realize God created man, but it was Samuel Colt who made them equal as you keep your powder dry, locked, loaded, and determined not to bring a knife to a gun fight.

Like this:

The problem with social engineering is that the engineers don’t know how to drive the train. More like a complicated machine than a single celled organism society is a collection of individuals. Human nature decrees that freedom of choice is an inherent part of our social DNA therefore a healthy society is one built upon the choices and decisions freely arrived upon by the individuals who make up the whole. It is the self-interest and self-direction of these choices which build into the productive life of a free society.

Adam Smith addresses the contributions of societies individuals when he says, “intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”

Conversely, Friedrich Hayek warns us “To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.”

Unfortunately, politically motivated social engineers short circuit this process by replacing the countless choices and decisions of free people with the corrosive and stifling mandates of central planning.

Our nation was not founded to be a centrally planned socially straight-jacketed empire ruled by the decrees of a sovereign. We were founded upon the revolutionary principles born of our colonial heritage and the thinking of the Enlightenment. Having fought our way free from the crushing embrace of an overbearing king, our Founders were determined to establish a representative republic of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We are a constitutional Republic. We are a nation of Laws. As Thomas Paine said in the Rights of man, “The government of a free country … is not in the persons but in the laws.” Paine also remarked that if someone should ask, “Where is the King of America?” let us answer, “In America Law is King!”

Having studied the writings of Montesquieu and other Enlightenment thinkers, having established and maintained the separate branches of the various state governments, the Framers of our Constitution enshrined the principle of the separation of powers. This separation of powers is expressly stated in our Constitution. Article 1, Section 1 states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Article 2, Section 1 states, “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Article 3, Section 1 states, “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” These passages separate the three functions, legislative, executive, and judicial into three distinct spheres and it is the dynamic relationship between the three which restrains the government from becoming repressive and allows freedom to bloom.

Montesquieu said, “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.” James Madison, the Father of the Constitution said, “The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Executive Orders have been used by presidents since George Washington. They are nothing new. Yet they have always been controversial. Washington issued the first one instructed the heads of departments to make a “clear account” of matters in their departments. His next one called for a national day of thanksgiving. He also issued the first one to cause controversy when he issued an order in 1793 stating that the United States would be “friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers” of Britain and France. In this “Neutrality Proclamation,” Washington justified his power to issue such a statement based on the “law of nations.” Perhaps a constitutional justification could have been found in the powers of the President over foreign affairs but these were not referenced. Washington did not convene the Congress to debate the proclamation before issuing it. Immediately James Madison criticized Washington’s order as an overextension of executive authority and an infringement on Congress’s authority to decide issues of war and peace.

Although they have been stirring controversy since the dawn of the Republic originally Executive Orders were just what the name implies, orders from the executive and they were only binding upon the departments which made up the executive department. Most were never published and were only seen by the federal agencies involved. Some were of historical note such as when Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation or when Wilson segregated the military.

The Presidency of FDR marked a major turning point in the use of Executive orders, as in many other things. Roosevelt confronted the Great Depression as the moral equivalent of war and fought an undeclared war in the Atlantic and crippled Japan through trade sanctions. Truman desegregated the military. Eisenhower ended wage and price controls imposed by his predecessor. Kennedy and Johnson ended discrimination in housing and education. Nixon declared a war on drugs. Presidents used executive orders to steer the ship of state.

Then starting with the Clinton Administration a sea change took place in the use of Executive Orders. President Clinton used his executive power to achieve results he failed to achieve legislatively.

Over time though technically applying only to executive agencies, executive orders have taken on a wider interpretation until today they have become legally binding mandates issued by presidents who rule by decree.

With President Obama, seconded and supported by his Attorney General Holder, deciding not to enforce laws they disagree with, the rule of law has ended in the United States. We can date our passage from a nation of laws to a nation of men not with this momentous decision but more effectively from the moment our elected representatives declined to declare this action to be unconstitutional and illegal.

Today we have a government that is careening out of control and those we have elected to protect our rights by upholding the Constitution are abusing our rights and subverting the Constitution. Thomas Paine made it clear which was the cart and which was the horse when he said, “A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only a creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.”

We have clearly reversed the order. The cart is before the horse and the tail is wagging the dog. The use and abuse of executive orders have changed us from a nation of laws to a nation of men, from a federal republic with a limited government to a centrally-planned bureaucracy with leaders attempting to rule by decree. We know where they want to lead us. The question before us now is; will we go quietly into that dark night?